Before I begin this insanely terrifying tale, do me a favor. Think of the one person that you have a genuine connection with. Not a romantic connection – a friendship connection. Think of the one person that you trust and that helps you with any and everything. It doesn’t matter how you met or how long you’ve known each other. Got that person? Good. Hopefully, this story doesn’t ruin your confidence in that person or your friendship with them.

In the end of 2018, I was a Sophomore in college, and I was majoring in Physics. I was taking one of my final calculus courses, and on the first day of class, I sat down next to this guy who would become one of my closest, most trusted friends. For the sake of this story, let’s say his name is Tony. I'm a female, and when we first met, I'm not going to lie, there was a bit of an attraction, but it was nothing more than the completely natural thought of, “that person is good looking.” Nothing ever happened, and it was as if we were only ever meant to be friends. We’d study together for exams, and when I needed help with a physics chapter, he’d go out of his way to meet up with me and help me out. We told each other everything about ourselves – not in an attempt to flirt or anything, but just talking as if we were long-lost friends.

At the time of our meeting, I was managing a very well-known retail store, and during the Christmas season of 2018, I was looking for seasonal workers. I gave Tony a job, and we maintained a manager-employee relationship at work, and then we were regular friends outside of work. He was one of the best salespeople that I had on staff, and he caught on rather quickly and got along with everyone. He was hilarious. After the Christmas season was over in January of 2019, he left the store, and we went on with our normal friendship.

Sadly, well, at the time it was sadly, we somehow just stopped talking towards the end of 2019. We didn’t get into an argument or anything, and we still liked each other’s posts on Facebook and Instagram. Then, this year, 2020, the news broke.

My new best friend was a very close-to-be school shooter.

He was arrested on federal charges for terroristic threats for threating to carry out the largest school shooting that the world had ever seen. He had planned, and he was ready. He said that he had plenty of ammo to get the right amount of people to make him a legend. The reason he knew that he had just enough? He had a list. Who was on that list?

Me.

Don’t trust anyone. Ever.